Letter No.17, 17.10.42 The Sandstorm

Letter No. 17

Middle East

17.10.42

Dear Mum,

I finished writing a letter to you yesterday afternoon in a bit of a hurry because as I mentioned there was a bit of a sand-storm blowing. Well that sand-storm developed into by far the worst we have ever experienced.

About half an hour after I finished the letter the wind & sand came up properly & in a few minutes we could not see more than about 10 yards. The dust came into the tent in waves & it wasn’t long before it was an inch thick & we just had to sit there & let it come. At half past three it was so dark that we had to light a hurricane lamp to see our way round the tent.

To give you some idea of how thick it was, one of the boys left the tent to go to his aircraft & see if it was covered up properly. The kite was parked not more than a hundred yards from the tent & he set out in a straight line for it. Anyhow after wandering around aimlessly around the desert for an hour & three quarters he finally managed to find the tent again but he had not seen his aircraft. As he wanted to find out definitely if it was OK one of the lads went with him on his second trip to show him ‘how to find his way in the dust’. They arrived back at tea-time but whether the kite was covered or not was still a mystery. One of the lads then suggested that it would have been moved over to workshops & we left it at that. Anyhow when we woke up this morning it was still in its usual place. That’s how good the sand-storm was. Incidentally the kite was covered all the time.

Naturally we had no hope of finding our way to the mess & even if we could the books had no hope of cooking anything for us so the corporal in the tent next to us went down in a truck & brought back rations for each tent. They consisted of a tin of bully, large tin of herrings in sauce, tin of sardines, bread, butter & cheese. As the bread is made out of very crook tasting flour (brown) we never eat it as it is but make toasts of it. Of course, a primus is not a good toaster & as I was elected the tent cook & being the only one with a few brains I put the tin of butter in a dixie & we made several slices of fried bread. Very good too?

We finished tea about 7.30 & shortly after the dust eased off a bit & we thought it was going to stop but about 8.30 the wind came up again at about 50 miles an hour & with it came the rain. We were just about getting into bed when it hit us & as you can imagine the tent & us nearly parted company & we had to get out in the driving rain & try to peg the tent down properly. After getting wet through we had it pegged & the rain & the wind was not driving so hard. When we went back in the tent & the fly had been touching & the rain had streamed down on top of our beds & gear. More trouble. Anyhow the rain finally ceased & we got into bed, wet & all as they were. A light rain fell all right & most of the morning but we kept reasonably dry.

We are a lot better off than some of the boys because, firstly the ground our tent is on is high & the water drains off & secondly, our tent is a new one. Some of the tents had water three to four inches deep in them & their gear was all wet through. Quite a few were blown down & the occupants had a rather wet night.

The C.O. was one of the unfortunate ones.

Between showers this morning we managed to move our gear outside & we got about half a ton of fine sand off the mat.

Things seem to be clearing up a bit now & I think it will all be over by to-night. Such is life in the desert.

Pictures were naturally put off so we may have a show tomorrow night.

As I mentioned in one of my other letters our 200th kite celebrations are not far off. As a matter of fact, the war correspondent for the Syd Morning Herald is here now waiting to interview the pilot who has the honour of shooting down number two hundred & I suppose he will get a big write up in the paper.

That’s about all for now but will write again when I have some news.

Give my love to Dad & Betty & regards to Leo

Lovingly Yours
Frank

PS. Excuse writing but I am penning these lines under extreme difficulties      -F.